


The Lighthouse Keeper

by CozyCryptidCorner



Category: Original Work, exophilia - Fandom
Genre: Exophilia, Fluff, Gen, Human/Monster Romance, Lighthouses, Marriage, Naga, this is just some self indulgent content on my part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 02:10:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17737031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CozyCryptidCorner/pseuds/CozyCryptidCorner
Summary: "You can either marry the man who you claim is a monster, or you can marry an actual monster and see how that goes for you."Your throat closes, fear boiling in your blood. "Anyone but him."Your father laughs, turning his head away. "Then leave. Go to the beast who lives in the next village over and offer yourself to him. Don't ever return to me."





	The Lighthouse Keeper

The smell of saltwater purifies your lungs, the air of the coast infinitely better than whatever permeates the city a few miles back. The damp sand feels exquisite on your sore, bare feet as you wander up the shoreline, riding boots idly dangling from your hand. The moon is out, strange and alien in the bright daylight, half a crescent hovering over the sea as though needing to remind the planet of its existence. A single puff of white rides through the azure sky, carried by high crosswinds that dare not sink any lower to the ground.

  


The tide is low. During the night, the water would be at least around your shoulders at this point, an easy target for the dangerous current to rip away from the shore. Now, during midday, the sea only laps around your ankles at its deepest point, dozens of minnows circling around your feet with fearless curiosity. Up ahead, you see your destination; a large chunk of dull gray rock formation sprouting from the sands. The stone serves as the foundation of a lighthouse, anchoring it to the earth against the deadly storms that tend to kick up in this area.

  


A shining white glimmer catches your eye, the body of a tall, and inhumanely long creature moving with such grace and poise that your trudging steps look almost sloppy in comparison. He clearly notices you approaching, your clothes a splash of color against the starkness of the sands and a break from the screaming blue of the sky, his body rising to its full height in order to, you hope, see you better, and not as an intimidation tactic.

  


Neither of you tries saying a single word to each other until you are close enough within hearing range. You walk right up to him, nervous butterflies in your stomach, and talk in the most confident tone you can muster. “Hi! I hope I’m not imposing, but I have two questions for you.” You hold up a finger. “One, are you single, and two,” you add another finger to the count, “can I marry you?”

 

He drops his basket. “I- what?”

  


You repeat the questions, changing the wording a bit to be more clear. “Are you married, and if not, would you mind marrying me.”

  


The slitted blue eyes narrow as he cocks his head in confusion. “You would like… to marry me.”

  


“Yes. As long as you aren’t married already.”

  


He recoils a bit, and you hope he isn’t disgusted with your humanness to refuse. But he just seems a bit bewildered by your request, carefully mulling it over as he bends down to pick up the basket of fish he dropped. His scales shimmer blue and green, his coloring bright against the dull pale sands, his carefully tied white hair almost glows in the brilliance of the sun. When he straightens his spine and looks back at you, he closes his eyes and lets out a sigh. “Let’s go inside. I’ll make some tea.”

  


The adjacent house is well-kept and organized, though so far you only see the atrium and kitchen. The Naga places the basket into a sink, then moves to a different pump and fills a kettle with what you assume is fresh water. After setting the kettle onto a wood stove to heat up, he slithers back towards where you’ve been instructed to sit, hands placed primly on the table in front of you and back straight. He takes a seat, eyeing you with an almost suspicious stare.

  


“What makes someone like you trek across the coastline to propose to me,” he points to himself with a pearly claw, “someone who is considered a monster by your people?”

  


You tap your fingernails against the old wood of the table, staring at the cracks and crevices while trying to come up with a response that doesn’t sound insane or hysterical. “My family is of lower-class merchants. Someone made a ludicrous offer to buy me.”

  


“Buy you?” He echoes in the form of a question, his eyes the same blue sharpness of the sky.

  


“Six mares, his third most prized stallion, and enough money for my father to buy his way into a better guild. I would be his third wife.” Saying those words still send shivers down your spine, even though you had carefully rehearsed them over and over to be able to deliver them without bursting into tears.

  


“Why would that be so bad?” He asks, furrowing his brow as though he couldn’t fathom a downside to that. “The man in question sounds rich enough to give you a comfortable life. Why would you throw that away?”

  


You say nothing yet because you can feel a pressure in your chest threaten you with tears. The creature in front of you might see crying as a sign of hysteria, and refuse to deal with you, as your father so often did before. Fear, not of the Naga, but of your own emotions, causes you to stiffen up and bite your tongue down hard enough to taste coppery blood. The pain sharpens your other senses with the false pretense of danger, and in turn, the tears fail to form in your eyes.

  


Sparing you from further silence, the kettle shrieks, calling the Naga’s attention away from your closeness to a mental breakdown. He is silent as he measures out herbs to place in your cup, clearly mulling your offer over. When he returns with the tea, handing a napkin over to accompany it. After a few more minutes debating, he seems to come to a conclusion.

  


“Work here in the lighthouse is hard.” He takes one of your hands and looks it over to calluses or signs of work. You have plenty. “And often not for everyone. You might miss the hustle and bustle of the city.”

  


You take what you hope is a deep breathe, free of shuddering. “I am fully prepared for the change in lifestyle.”

  


“I tell you what,” he says, “clearly you are in need of a deal. I am willing to make things work. We don’t have to get married, at least, not right away, until you have adjusted to what work is like here. If you decide against it, you can part ways with no hard feelings. But if you have what it takes?” A flicker of a smile ghosts on his lips. “My wife you will be.”

  


It’s far better than you could have hoped for.

  


“My name is Aleksander,” he says while showing you a room that had been previously used for storage. It’s the only part of his home that is cluttered in any way. Stacks of equipment and rolls of maps, both ancient and new, cover the walls. There’s a makeshift cot in the corner, one that he helps you set up, though the only blanket he has is dusty and punctured with moth bites. You reassure him that you don’t mind, though you know eventually the holes will leave you cold during the long winter nights.

  


The ocean has begun to swell with its high tide, you can hear the push of the waves against the rocks. You follow Aleksander out of the main part of the house and up the ungodly amount of stairs of the tower to help him, taking a rag and dipping it into a foaming bucket to scrub the windows clean, following his movements to the best of your ability. The muscles in your arms aren’t used to the amount of strain needed to reach some of the more hard-to-reach places, but Aleksander is quick to take care of what you cannot. Now, just as the sun is setting, is when he lights the thick wick of the candle.

  


He tells you that you can go to sleep a bit earlier than him and not to worry, because he always stays up through the night to make sure everything is running smoothly. “Sometimes, the ships seem to be run by a full crew of idiots,” he explains in an almost joking manner while you snuggle into the cot, before he slithers up the many flights to the top of the tower.

  


The sounds of the sea lull you to sleep. It’s completely silent here compared to the city, where there would always be some kind of cart or group of people wandering the streets at all times, some doing the nightly jobs needed to keep everything running smoothly, some just a bunch of drunken idiots who need to be escorted home by the constables. Here, the sounds of nature are soft. Sweet. Like a cradle Mother Earth has always intended for her children to rest in.

  


You wake up, light seeping in from the window and heating your bed to an almost unbearable degree. Swinging your legs over the edge, you yawn, stretching your arms over your head before heading downstairs to the kitchen. Aleksander isn’t there. You go back up to the second floor of the house, peeking in the room he pointed out yesterday as his. There, you find him, his body sprawled out on a mat, the end of his tail curling and twitching back and forth. His face is at peace, his mouth open slightly as he breathes. His white hair is down from the half-ponytail he had it in yesterday, a cowlick sticking a few strands almost straight up towards the ceiling.

  


Quietly, you shut the door, feeling almost guilty as though you had just watched something you shouldn’t have. Watching someone sleep, you think, is a layer of intimacy you have not yet earned. With little else to do, you wander back down to the kitchen to investigate what you can work with. Not that you take anything for yourself, you don’t really know how Aleksander operates, and you don’t want to ruin anything for him on the second day. You do, however, help yourself to some water from what you assume is the well pump.

  


You can hear him wake, the sound of his movement dragging across the thin floor loud enough to jar you out of whatever trance you had been thinking in. Down he comes from the hall, his white scaly body trailing after him, part of his tail still on the top of the stairs by the time he reaches the kitchen. Perhaps he is a little surprised to see you are still here, his eyes widen just a slight when he sees you sitting at the table.

  


“Good morning!” You say, trying to sound as chipper as you can, though you feel like you have to push your tone a little more than usual.

  


“Good morning to you, too.” His eyes seem a little bleary from lack of sleep, his movements stiff and sluggish.

  


“Can I help you make breakfast?” You prompt, “that is, if you eat breakfast?”

  


Aleksander looks you over. “Of course.”

  


Breakfast consists of the edible things easily found on the coast. He patiently shows you how to light, then use the woodstove, his cast iron pans tucked away in a chest to the side. While he cooks, you ground the coffee by hand in a stone bowl, ignoring the pain of your quickly sore wrist and focusing on breaking apart the earthy smelling beans. After a few glances over your shoulder to see how fine the granules are, Aleksander decides they are satisfactory and ready for the water boiling in the kettle.

  


Though it’s not something that you would have personally selected for yourself before, there’s no denying how delicious it actually is. You are more hungry today than yesterday- perhaps it has something to do with the ocean air. Even with your hands shaking with the anticipation to shovel the food down your throat, you still manage to eat with an air of delicate politeness, perfectly prim and proper, just as you were taught.

  


The only garden Aleksander can grow is a small patch of herbs, all positioned in the windowsill of the kitchen, with soil from inland padded in little containers. The sand isn’t suitable for growing food, and the rock isn’t exactly prime real estate for some of the more finicky vegetables that can be produced. You water the little plants with a small cup filled from the freshwater well, then follow Aleksander outside.

  


“Every week or so, I go into the little fishing village just north.” Aleksander points in the direction he speaks of, his long, slender fingers glimmering blue under the sky. “I pick up my salary and supplies. That’s where the food I can’t grow or catch here comes from.”

  


“When is your next trip?” You ask, accepting one of the wicker baskets he hands you. It must be a little sooner than normal since he has you to feed as well.

  


“I’ll leave in two days. You can come if you want, or you can stay.” His tail drags in the water, kicking up a cloud of sand. “Though you don’t have to make the decision now.”

  


There is a basket on a ledge, high enough away from the ground to be only marginally safe during high tide. Climbing the steep, ridiculously smooth face of the stone would be a literal nightmare for you, but Aleksander simply pushes himself higher with his tail, clinging to the rock only for balance. He grabs the basket on top with ease, switching it over with the empty one, and then slide back down to the ground level.

  


“The fishers are out all night while the tide is full,” Aleksander explains as he opens the top of the basket to reveal several different kinds of reef fish, “we have an arrangement where they leave me a basket on their way back to shore.”

  


“That’s convenient.” You pass him your empty basket and take the one with the fish. It isn’t a whole bunch, just enough for the two of you for dinner later in the day. That way, you suppose, you’re guaranteed the freshness every day instead of suffering through the stink of improperly storing them.

  


Aleksander walks you through the other chores, all things that might take him a few minutes by himself to do, but he has to slow down and have you imitate his movements step-by-step. He is shockingly patient, considering the circumstances, and doesn’t raise his voice at you no matter how frustrated he may get. It’s almost painful for you to watch any sort of negativity diffuse in his eyes before he even opens his mouth, and you are hyper aware of every little twitch of your muscles and huff of your breath.

  


Soon you are covered in sweat and grit, finely ground sand caked under your fingernails, your skin sticky with salt. While Aleksander checks the reflective lenses up in the tower, you heat some water to scrub your skin with.

  


“I’m going down in the cellar,” Aleksander tells you as he returns. “Would you mind waking me at dusk? I need to sleep.”

  


You note the grayness under his eyes. “Of course. Nothing else you need me to do for now, though, right?”

  


“There’s nothing else until nightfall, no,” Aleksander agrees, slithering almost like in a trance to the wooden cover on the floor.

  


In your old house, you would get monthly milk bathes. Petals from various flowers would float on the surface, oils supposed to keep your youth and bring you mirth scenting the water. After, a servant would scrub any dead skin off your body and leave you soft and glowing. You had one silk nightdress, almost worn down to holes, and you would lay in bed with it clinging to your body, feeling like a goddess.

  


Here, you use a bar of pumice to scrub and a square of cream colored soap, the scent faint with lavender. When you see a fair amount of steam rising from the pot, you take it off the woodstove and place it on the table. If Aleksander is really asleep like he says, then there’s no reason to haul everything up to your room just to hide your body behind locked doors.

  


At first, it’s a little awkward, standing bare-chested in the kitchen by yourself, rubbing the volcanic rock on your arms to rub away the salt. When you hear an odd  _thump_  from under the trapdoor, your entire body freezes like a startled doe. Nothing comes of it, though, so you continue to bathe yourself, a little faster than before.

  


Though you might murder someone at the promise of a nap at this point, you grit your teeth and stay vigilant. When the sky turns red with the blood of the sun, you feel numb with relief. The cellar door is heavy to lift, but you manage to pry it away from the floor and flip it over. The crimson light of the sunset reflects pink against a set of iridescent scales, the tail they belong to entirely motionless in rest. You tiptoe down the stone steps, a chill caressing your skin.

  


You take a minute to decide how to go about waking a Naga, walking from one end of the almost damp room to the other. Aleksander lays still, his torso propped away from the floor by his tail, his head slouched against the mountain of body curled to his side. You try pushing against his shoulder with your pointer finder, mumbling something among the lines of  _wake up please,_  pausing for a moment to reevaluate your method when nothing happens.

  


The next thing you try is shaking his shoulder- though that’s sort of a generous statement for what you actually manage to do. But hey, it works. Aleksander’s eyes open slowly, squinting even though the lighting is almost too dim for even you to see, and says, “is it time already?”

  


You help him up, his body still stiff with sleep, and walk with him back up to the kitchen. “Maybe I can go up with you tonight?” You have to ask, even though you are literally an hour away from collapsing.

  


“I think perhaps you should sleep, but if you wish, I will wake you just before sunrise to help adjust your body’s inner time,” he says, and you have to admit begrudgingly that he has a point.

  


“That sounds nice,” you say, already dreading the early morning.

  


The early mornings are agonizing. Sleep crusts your eyes, your body numb with the previous day’s tasks, your head pinching just behind your eyes. Always, it seems, your stomach decides to make some unusual noises as you roll out of bed, Aleksander’s loud knocking like gunshots in your exhausted ears. But you always prevail, forcing your stiff legs to move against their will towards the door, only wearing a shawl wrapped around your slip since getting dressed would take too long.

  


At night, the ocean is a different world. It floods the beach, waves frothing against the stone of the foundation, wind tugging at the hems of the shawl as you stand over the balcony. This is how you wake up, the cold of the night seeping into your pores, the salty air churning in your lungs. Hands bracing tightly on the rails, you lean over to watch the torchlight roar into the sea, before turning around to help Aleksander with any kind of tasks needed to be done at that moment.

  


It takes time for you to learn, and even weeks later, you still barely manage to keep up. The last two trips into the city he ’s offered to take you with him, but you instead opt to sleep the entire day away. And, perhaps, there is a small fear in the back of your mind that you would be recognized. Though, you suppose, if your family really wants you back, then they already know where you are. You guess you just don’t want to risk it.

  


With time comes familiarity. You know how Aleksander likes his coffee, that his favorite color is the forest green of the mountain vineyards, and that he favors the thin, silvery scaled fish over the others brought in the night. In turn, he also knows those simple preferences about you, as well. You think that it is nice that someone takes the time to get to know you on a personal level, rather than just shoving you away until you’re needed to be a pawn in their trade negotiations.

  


Not that you’re bitter or anything.

  


Eventually, you agree to go to the little fishing village. Though he doesn’t ask why you seem so hesitant, you can feel the question in the air, hanging over you like a reaper’s scythe. It’s not that you don’t want to tell him… you are afraid of what he might think of you. A foolish child, not worth the air you breathe. It’s what every other man you know has thought of you, why should Aleksander bother to believe any different?

  


You pull the shawl over your head and hope that you won’t be recognized. And, to your immense relief, you are not. The only odd behavior would be from a drunken old man spitting at your feet and cursing you for sleeping with a beast. You kick him in the groin, and he stops bothering you after that.

  


The general store always has enough fuel for the lighthouse to last even if the supply chain is interrupted. Aleksander simply has to state how much he used, then estimate how much he needs. It seems that the store manager has a delivery system set up for people who live out a ways from the town and don’t have any horses to cart their wares around, which is lucky, because you can feel your soul leaving your body as you stare at the drums that somehow need to be transported up the coast.

  


The night before, you had sat down with him and planned a menu for the week, so you go through the open-air market to pick out some proper vegetables to roast and fry. A butcher has a thick chunk of meat ready for you to pay for, and you carefully count out the coins before tucking the slab into the basket. Turning, you see Aleksander negotiating the price of a straw hat to a weaver, before turning around with his purchase.

  


Without making a scene, he places the hat on your head and pats it once, to be sure it’s in place. “There, now you don’t have to squint so much in the sun.”

  


A spark fizzles in your stomach as you look at him, a smile forming on your mouth against your will. “Thank you.”

  


“Your welcome.” He reaches over and picks a stray bit of hay out of the hat, flicking it to the ground. “Let’s go finish the last couple of errands.”

  


Is it just you, or does he seem paler today?

  


The cart is pulled by two mules. Aleksander helps you climb up the wooden platform and sit in the back, your legs dangling over the edge, your feet far from the ground. The ride back is peaceful, the driver not saying a word to either of you, thankfully. You don’t think you would be up for idle conversation.

  


Even though you have only been out for the afternoon, you feel a sense of relief as the lighthouse comes into view over a dune. You take to the kitchen, putting away the food that isn’t going to be used for tonight’s dinner, then start chopping potatoes. After the fuel is hauled up the tower by a pulley system, Aleksander slithers in to help.

  


The week repeats last. You think you are getting stronger, the muscles on your arms bulking up from the hours of work you do every day. Eventually, you’re able to do a lot of the chores on your own without needing Aleksander to stand to the side in case something goes wrong, and with your assistance, the housework finishes quicker than before. Now there is leisure time, and neither of you are sure how to spend it.

  


There’s a chessboard buried in between the wall and some tools in your room, you found it one day while you are organizing the space. You blow the dust off the top, fiddling with the drawers on the side in an experiment. Gathering your find together, you head downstairs to where Aleksander is debating on extinguishing the woodstove to give it a thorough cleaning. He turns when he hears you, his movements fluid and graceful.

  


“Do you play?” You ask, placing the set on the kitchen table, beginning to put the pieces in their starting positions.

  


“I forgot about that old thing,” Aleksander says softly, pulling out a chair to sit in front of you. “It belonged to the previous keeper.”

  


“It looks expensive,” you remark, running your fingers over the carving.

  


“He was a woodcarver in his spare time, he made this himself.” Aleksander picks up the painted white piece and looks it over carefully. “I put it away because I didn’t have a partner to play with.” He coughs.

  


The two of you are pretty evenly matched. Not because both of you are good, but because both of you can barely recall the rules of the game anyway. It soon becomes a contest of who can cheat without the other noticing.

  


“I’m certain the rules say nothing about  _not_  moving the bishops that way,” you try to say in defense of your move.

  


“Uh, that doesn’t  _count,”_  Aleksander tries moving your piece back, so you clasp your hands around his to stop it.

  


“I read somewhere that it does.”

  


“It does not.”

  


“Yes.”

  


“No.”

_  
_

_”Yes!”_

  


“N-no,” he wheezes, eye twitching. Quickly letting go, he turns around to cough, his lungs nearly turning themselves inside out.

  


“Alek?” You ask, worry filling you to the brim.

  


He pauses, his breath rattling in his chest. Then he shakes his head and sits up tall. “It’s nothing, don’t worry.”

  


“That didn’t sound like nothing, and I  _will_  worry!” You can barely contain your panic, not sure if you should go over and help him or let him breathe. “Should I fetch a doctor?” The sun is already setting, the water is going to reach up to your waist, but you would try. You would try for him.

  


“We need to man the lighthouse. It’s fine, it’s-” he coughs, continuing in a subdued voice, “it will be fine.”

  


You don’t like that, no you don’t, but if he collapses sometime in the night, you need to be at the helm of the light. “Let’s head upstairs, then.”

  


Nagas are  _heavy._  It’s something that people always know, but never have to experience firsthand until their lighthouse keeper is barely conscious and needs to have someone to his side to maintain his balance. Aleksander has his arm around your shoulder, his torso pressing up against yours as he tries to remain steady. More than once, you feel the brunt of his weight as he fights fainting, your thighs beginning to quake with the strain.

  


Already, the both of you know he isn’t going to make it through the night fully conscious. Aleksander sprawls on the floor, his scales almost devoid of their usual shimmer, his body quaking with cold. Do Nagas even use blankets? You don’t think so. Does he need to be warmed up, though? You don’t have time to make a decision because you can’t see and because you can’t see, you realize that you need to light the lamp  _now._

_  
_

You have never done it before. A few times in the past, you have extinguished the flame, but never had to actually light it. After checking the fuel, you look around for any source of fire, finding a little box on the table opposite side of the balcony door. The wind howls like a starving wolf as you strike the match with shaking hands, carefully holding the stick up to the wick until it catches.

  


Moving to put the patches back, you notice a thick leather bound book sitting on the desk, a quill and closed ink bottle to the side. You open it, running your finger over the first page. It’s a list of names.  _Behnam Alinejad. Omid Monshipour. Esther Farzan._  Your eyes scan past the dozens of people, settling to the end.  _Aleksander Kamali_  in clean, crisp handwriting. This must be a list of those who have kept the lighthouse running over the years.

  


You flip the page, discovering an encyclopedia of sorts. The index is meticulous, every page numbered for efficiency. After a few tense moments of searching, you find instructions for handling the nightly rounds. The numb relief only lasts a few moments, though, because then you hear Aleksander’s choking cough behind you.

  


You turn around and kneel at his side, reaching over to cup his face with both hands, feeling for his temperature. His skin is colder than usual, his eyes closed as his body forcibly shuts down. Blankets. You need to get him blankets.

  


“Hey,” you try to say in the most soothing tone you can muster, “it’s going to be alright.”

  


When he doesn’t respond, you double-check how the light is burning, make sure the reflectors are pointing out to sea, then run down the stairs to the house. He doesn’t have any blankets in his room since he’s never needed any, so you quickly gather up the moth-eaten cloth on your bed. Bundling it up into a manageable pile, you walk back up the stairs as careful as you can, the blanket blocking your view.

  


Aleksander lets you wrap him up with little protest, though you can only cover his torso and some of his lower half. You leave him leaning against the wall, scooting his tail out of the way so you can navigate the circular room without tripping over any stray body parts. He mumbles something that you can’t understand, so you lean in.

  


“Be careful.” His voice is a breathy whisper. One of his hands reaches over to touch yours.

  


You hold his hand tightly for a moment. “I will.”

  


* * *

  


There are no words to describe how utterly exhausted you are when the light of dawn glimmers through the window. Your fingers are stiff, your arms are wobbly, and you can’t even muster the energy to do anything better than a shuffle from one end of the room to the other to make sure everything is running how it is supposed to.

  


The doctor should be here soon. When you saw the bobbing lamplight of a little fishing boat, you threw open the balcony door and screamed for help until they responded. You told them that Aleksander was sick and needed a doctor  _now_  and you don’t know what’s wrong with him. They promised to go to town and wake up the only physician between here and the city, though no one knows if they are skilled in any non-human anatomy.

  


“Hello? No one was answering the door, so I let myself in.”

  


You run down the flights of stairs, a burst of adrenaline fueling your body, dodging through the hallway with the bedrooms, then down the stairs again to the kitchen. “OH- thank the stars. You’re the doctor, right?”

  


She’s a thin, reed of a woman, swimming in a white shirt two sizes too big for her, with pants held up by suspenders. Her dark hair is pulled back into a bun, baby strands poking out from their place and stick straight up from the humidity and exercise. Rubber boots that end above her knees must have kept her feet dry as she trudged through the water in order to arrive. “Yiska Blas,” she introduces herself, “I’m told the lighthouse keeper is sick.”

  


“Yes! He’s upstairs.”

  


Yiska follows you without question, and you try to think of all the symptoms he had been exhibiting to tell her. As the two of you come to rest at the top of the tower, you point to the side of the room he is in. Aleksander is still in the last place you left him, laying on the floor, head resting on his arm. The blanket covers him, so you pull it away from his face so the doctor can have a better look at him.

  


After a few minutes, she turns to you and sighs. “Looks like a cold, though the severity is very troubling. Can we get him to his bed, you think?”

  


“Um.” You look over to the staircase. “There’s a pulley system, though we would need to get him down to the platform below.”

  


Yiska sighs. “I feared as much. Here, grab his waist, I’ll get his shoulder.”

  


If you hadn’t been working as hard as you have, there would be no way in hell you would be able to do such a feat, even with the help. As you strain under Aleksander’s weight, Yiska mutters something about Naga moving being a  _three_  person job as his tail knocks over a chair. You honestly thought,  _ok, this is where my luck ends,_ because you and Yiska cannot possibly haul this gigantic creature down the stairs to the platform and not trip, but you do, and it happens.

  


You arrange his body in a way that you hope evenly distributes his weight on the thick board, then you and Yiska pull on the ropes. It rises, then aligns itself straight over the ground, many stories below. Slowly, carefully, you lower him down, down, down, until the rope slacks with the lack of load. Aleksander is safely on the ground, still sleeping like a drunken sailor.

  


Then, of course, you have carry him back to his room.

  


You are literally moments away from collapsing yourself, but you sit next to where Aleksander lays and watch Yiska measure out a vial. “Give him about a teaspoon’s amount every night and morning. Do you have a bag of oats or barley somewhere?”

  


You have to think about that, your brain barely more than a pile of sludge. “I think so.”

  


“Heat it by the fire. Keep Aleksander on his stomach while he sleeps, and place the heated bag on his back. It creates a fever his body needs to fight the disease since he’s cold-blooded and can’t make on on his own. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow to check up on him.”

  


“Thank you,” you mumble ferverly.

  


“Take care of yourself,” she adds, an order.

  


You do your best to obey. After she leaves, you trudge back up the tower to put out the light, then move back downstairs to eat some stale bread, just for the sake of eating something. You fetch the fish, carefully wrapping them and placing them in the cellar as your last primary chore of the day. Anxiety fills you at the thought of sleeping- what if you sleep through dusk and night? But you lay down next to Aleksander and force yourself to shut your eyes before you die of exhaustion.

  


It takes three days for him to wake up.

  


There were moments when he would speak, his sentences warbled and incoherent. You would try your best to decipher them to no avail. You follow the doctor’s instructions with precision, cycling two bags of grain, measuring out the syrup with a small spoon and opening his mouth to drip it in. When you aren’t moving around the lighthouse to keep it running and taking care of Aleksander, you are dead asleep by his side.

  


The next time the doctor visits, she tells you his condition is better and that you’re doing good. You’re too numb to thank her properly.

  


It’s early dawn of the fourth day. You extinguish the lantern, pick up the basket of food you brought with you to snack on, and head back downstairs. The vial sits on the kitchen counter where you leave after giving Aleksander the night’s dosage, and you pick it up to bring with you to his room.

  


You almost drop it when you walk through the door to see him sitting up, blinking in confusion as he tries to get his bearings. Your chest feels tight suddenly, are you the one about to get sick, now? Tears threaten your eyes as you move forward, kneeling beside him, then wrapping your arms around his chest.

  


“Aleksander,” your voice can barely choke out.

  


“What happened? How long was I asleep?”

  


“Days. I was so worried, I  _can’t,”_  you take in a shuddering breath as he hugs you tighter to his chest. “The doctor said you would be fine, but after yesterday when you wouldn’t even wake…”

  


“I’m fine,” he says, and this time you believe him.

  


Yiska yells at him when she returns, chewing him out for failing to rest and not taking care of himself. She’s terrifying in her own right, her voice authoritative and powerful. Aleksander nods and apologizes to her at every point she makes, you’ve never seen him so meek before. When she leaves the room to retrieve her bag, he turns back towards you.

  


“You took care of the lighthouse all by yourself?” He asks, his voice in a strange, high tone.

  


“It was difficult,” you admit, knowing that your eyes are sagging halfway down your face from exhaustion, “but I managed.”

  


“Hm.” Aleksander looks at his hands, mouth in a pondering line. “That was… incredible of you.”

  


“It was, wasn’t it.” His praise fills you with warmth, a heated blush on your cheeks.

  


“When Doctor Blas comes back, do you want to ask her for a priest?” Aleksander asks after a pause, looking back up. His eyes are a blue, purer than even the sky, more beautiful than any sapphire that you’ve seen.

  


“You aren’t on your deathbed!” You retort, playfully smacking his shoulder.

  


“Not for the last rights, for marriage.”

  


The blush gets even hotter, but besides that, hope, light and free flows through your body like a bird in flight. “Really?”

  


“Yes, really.” He takes both your hands in his, his gaze intense and melts your insides. “If you still want to marry me, then I would be most honored to be your husband.”

  


“I would,” you sniff and nod, the tears that come not even stinging your eyes. “I would like that very much.”

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all i was not expecting having to google some of the things i googled while writing this. My fbi agent is probably baffled rn 
> 
> *Youtuber voice* If you liked what you read, smash that kudos button! Want to tell me how much you liked this fic? Leave me a comment! Want to keep tabs on my writings? Subscribe and you get a free (yes, FREE) email every time I publish a fic! Want me to write more? Shower me with praise because positive reinforcement motivates me to work!


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